


The Reply

by iKnowHowToDuck



Category: Jane the Virgin (TV)
Genre: AU, F/F, Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-20
Updated: 2017-08-08
Packaged: 2018-12-04 21:24:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11563617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iKnowHowToDuck/pseuds/iKnowHowToDuck
Summary: How could she not reply to Luisa's message, when it seemed so genuine?How could she not take the opportunity she had been waiting for?





	1. Of Course

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually loved the fact that Susanna and Rose are the same person, but I think the reveal left a lot to be desired. Of course, the writers have to prioritize the dramatic reveal over Luisa and Rose being an actual functional couple. I'm not bitter. I totally am though.  
> But anyways, I wrote this fic to give y'all the ending you deserve.

Luisa was sitting on her couch, waiting for the message, which she knew (in the rational part of her brain) probably wouldn't arrive. She had even spent some time starting down her bottle, again, reveling in the fact that even though no message had arrived, she wasn't drinking. At least she wasn't drinking. She is is pulled from her thoughts by a knock at the door-- she slowly gets up to answer it, not wanting to rush to the door only to find a not-Rose standing there. She opens the door, revealing a tired looking Susanna. Not Rose.  
"heyy!" She greets, a little disappointed, but still genuinely happy that Susanna is here. She turns to walk away to hide her disappointment as Susanna asks if there is still no message from Rose.  
"mm-mm"  
"But who cares? I don't need her in my life."  
That was the wrong thing to say as a come-on line to Susanna, who was actually Rose, who was actually holding a package of powdered sugar donuts behind her back. As Luisa leaned in for the kiss, Rose-Susanna stepped away,  
"Look, I know you were helping us, when you were talking about how you felt, about Rose, but.. that sounded real. Was it?"  
"Yeah.. but it's just cause I never got closure." Said a tearful Luisa.  
And it was at that moment that the other woman brought the arm from behind her back to display the donuts, which were now directly blocking Luisa's path to Susanna-Rose.  
Luisa stared at the donuts for a long moment, her face unreadable..  
"But, how did you know?" A pause. "Rose?"  
"Yeah. I love you Luisa. I never stopped. And you don't have to wait for me, because I'm here."  
"But, you were dead! I saw you!" Her tone very near accusatory.  
"That wasn't me. That was just to free us."  
Not that that cryptic remark helped to clear up how the actual stunt had been pulled off.  
"But... your face? And your voice? And your eyes? How?!??"  
And it was at this moment that Rose-Susanna reached under her shirt to pull off her mask, Running a hand through her real hair to free it, then removing the contacts that changed her eye color. Then she removed the band-aid like thing on her neck that apparently changed her voice, because when she spoke again, it was in Rose's own voice.  
"Just a mask, some colored contacts, a voice modulator, the usual." She winked. Luisa laughed half-heartedly. "So your face... it's the same?"  
"Would you repaint the Sistine Chapel?" She joked. Luisa laughed, a happier laugh this time. More at ease.  
"So, what do you say? Are you ready for our happily ever after? You know, ours IS the greatest love story ever told..." And when Luisa laughed for the third time, it was the happiest sounding laugh yet. And so Rose leaned in for a gentle kiss, which, because it was Rose and Luisa, quickly and inevitably became much more heated. Until Rose pulled away, that is.  
"Luisa, you know we need to talk first."  
"I know." She replied, practically sighing through her words.  
"And I know you have things you want to say to me, so just, go ahead"  
A pause. A deep breath.  
"What the hell Rose?!"  
"What?" Rose was being infuriatingly calm about all of this. Using her softest voice, speaking calming words. It was damn annoying. To Luisa, who was clearly very angry.  
"What the HELL, ROSE?!?!? You killed my father, you kidnapped my nephew, you let me think you were DEAD, and the entire time you were right there, pretending to be Susanna?! I liked her. I liked her innocence. I liked how deeply she cared about justice, about me. I had a future with her. And you were dead.." It all proved to be too much for Luisa, and she started crying. Rose leaped into action, sitting her down on the couch, giving her a blanket, holding her gently as she cried. 

After Luisa had cried herself out, Rose dared to broach the forbidden topics again.  
"You know, about what you said, first of all, I regret those -terrible- things that I did. But believe me when I say I've changed. I have!" She insisted after seeing the look on Luisa's face.  
"But, look at me, this is important. For the most part, I wasn't pretending to be Susanna. Sure, I made up a background. But other than that, it was me. Think about it. Think back. It was me the whole time."  
Luisa thought back. In some ways, Rose and Susanna were polar opposites. Their respective careers, for instance. But in others, they were the same. Which makes sense, she thought bitterly. They were the same. They were the same in how they supported her alcoholism. They were the same in how they touched her, not like she was about to break, but gently nonetheless. They were the same in how they looked at her, even if they had different colored eyes. But Susanna was more real, more 'hers' than Rose had ever been. But maybe.... Maybe this Rose, this new Rose, with the natural color hair and without all the lies.... Maybe she could be the even more real, even more 'hers'.

The prolonged silence was starting to get to Rose. She had always been great at reading Luisa, but this was difficult, partly because Luisa was deep in thought and so only wore a contemplative face, and partly because Rose so wanted this to go well, and so she was probably imagining the particular sparkle in Luisa's eyes.

They sat in silence for a long while. It was a comfortable silence, because, well, they were leaning on each other. But it was an uncomfortable silence because the air was heavy with things left unsaid. Rose had long ago decided that Luisa would have to be the one to break the silence, not out of stubbornness, but out of a desire to have Luisa be completely comfortable with whatever came next. Whatever came next would have to be on Luisa's terms. That was the only way for this to work. 

So with 50% of the parties involved pledged to silence, and the other 50% still trying to work through everything in her mind, the two women found themselves in a stalemate of sorts. 

Luisa, for her own part, was going through every moment of her time with Susanna, and replacing Susanna with Rose (in a mask). Some of the moments made sense, some were even clearer or funnier. Thinking about how openly Luisa had been flirting, and how Susanna had reacted in much the way a straight woman might, while Rose was certainly far from straight. Thinking about all the conversations she and Susanna had had about Rose. Thinking about that fateful day, the only time Susanna and Rose had been in the same room. But upon reflection, that Rose wasn't the real Rose. She was probably one of Rose's henchwomen who had gone through plastic surgery. Susanna (Rose) had probably never even really been shot, because Rose (henchwoman) would probably not shoot her boss. 

This line of thinking continued for a while longer, until Luisa was too tired to think. And at that point, she silently pulled on Rose's hand, pulling her into the other room, where they could sleep in each other's arms. Nothing was resolved between them, but that didn't change the fact that they loved each other. If only their love was enough. If only they could spend the rest of time sleeping peacefully in the other's embrace, as they did that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah. There's gonna be at least one more chapter, which probably will not be up for a few more days.  
> Thank you all for reading and I hope you enjoyed. (And I would love to hear your comments)


	2. What Now?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What now? Rose is still here and they're both still very much in love. But what will the day bring, and what does it all mean for the future?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took me way longer than I wanted to update this chapter, turns out life gets really insane really fast. But I hope you enjoy! (also sorry it's pretty short.)

Luisa awoke with a sense of relative calm. She awoke to an empty bed, Rose must have gotten up. Rose. _Rose_. So much for that sense of calm. 

Luisa decided not to get up for a while. She didn't want to face anyone, especially not Rose. She was still angry, but mostly... mostly she was just uncertain. What did this mean? What was the next step? 

A thought struck her, and she knew the question it posed would be a game-changing one. Should she turn Rose into the police? On one hand, she was a criminal. She had killed people. Probably lots of people. And Luisa's father was among them. She wondered then if Rose's ghosts followed her around like Luisa's did; Luisa's ghost not being of the actual dead person kind, but rather every single mistake she had ever made. And there were a lot of them. 

That was the moment where the answer became clear. She wasn't going to turn Rose in. She couldn't. She loved her, despite everything. Despite herself, even. She might send her away, maybe. Yell at her, sure. But not get her arrested. Never that. She imagined that Rose being in prison would be the equivalent experience to Luisa being in the mental institution, and she didn't wish that experience or the accompanying emotions on anybody. Although, yeah, it was Rose who got her in there in the first place.

And with another sudden clarity, Luisa realized that she needed to talk to Rose. Just really talk to her. She didn't know about what yet. So she padded out of bed, going to look for Rose, whom she found in the kitchen. Luisa's eyes took a minute to adjust to the light and to the unusual scene before her, but when she realized what Rose was doing, she almost stared crying. And it was at that moment that Rose turned and saw the other woman, and she immediately started to defend herself.  
"I'm sorry, Luisa, but, um, you were still asleep, and I figured I should make breakfast, and I realized I can't actually cook, and I remembered that you like eating ice cream for breakfast sometimes, so I.." She trailed off, gesturing to the two bowls of rocky road ice cream that she had just served. Luisa was overwhelmed. She immediately flung herself to Rose, expressing all her emotions in one really long hug. She buried her face in Rose's neck, inhaling her scent, feeling another one of those odd senses of calm. A sense of belonging, even. And Rose, after the initial shock, responded to the hug with just as much enthusiasm, and without feeling the need to turn it into something else, for once. And when Luisa finally steeped away, she didn't go far. She took a step backwards and to the side, so she was free to admire the ice cream but remained with Rose's arm wrapped around her. She looked up at Rose, her eyes shining, grabbed a bowl of ice cream, and went to sit on the couch. When you have ice cream for breakfast, It's just a waste to eat it at a table like a civilized person.

So they sat on the couch with their bowls of ice cream and just talked. It was one of those talks. You know, the kind that goes on forever. Luisa relished in learning actual, truly honest and insignificant facts about Rose. Her favorite color, green (or the red color of roses, but definitely not the red color of blood). Her favorite animal, cats (because, as she proclaimed, "they're just so smart!"). And with each of these facts, it felt to Luisa like something bad that Rose had done was being replaced, bit by bit, with the person that Rose is. Really, truly is. And some deity better help Luisa because she was head-over-heels for that person. 

The whole day passed with Rose and Luisa spending simple time together. Over time, they moved from the couch where they ate breakfast, to a restaurant where they ate lunch (With Rose assuming the Susanna persona again), to a walk along the beach, back to that same couch, where they eventually ordered room service for dinner, and eventually to the bed that they shared, where they simply continued their talk to the later hours of the night. They had addressed everything of significance and everything of insignificance. Well, except for one thing: the current and future status of their relationship. Until Luisa yawned, tired from a long day of just being with Rose, and Rose realized something, a thought which she then spoke aloud to Luisa:  
"I think we just had our first real date." And then Luisa:  
"So can I interest you in another?" They both smiled.  
"Tomorrow?"  
"Tomorrow."  
And that's the way they feel asleep, both excited for the prospects that tomorrow would bring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there it is! I'd love to hear what you think. I'm thinking of continuing this fic, just because I like this AU idea and I'd really like to see how their relationship plays out with Rose still being Susanna and nobody suspecting a thing. Let me know if that's something you're interested in!


End file.
